AusBonsai

Hi Everyone
I dug this juni up 2 years ago and have just nurtured it till now, It has grown really well over this time and it's time to start working on it now. I'm really not sure where to go with it from here so I'm hoping somebody can give me some input . All ideas welcome . For size comparison that's a 1Lt Charlie carp bottle

I think the size is scarring us off Peter, but I do like the line of the first photo.

Thanks watto , the size is scaring me to, it was a great idea when the neighbor said i could have it, but now I'm feeling a bit intimidated . An idea i had was to volunteer it when we had another guest demonstrator
Peterb

Looks like a great workshop tree to me. Too hard to get a good idea of it in photos but I'm sure it has great potential.

3rd pic looks like a good 'natural' starting point for front showing off the tortured base and offers a nice opportunity to jin some of those big stubs

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Hi F/F
That was the front that i had chosen as well, but the problem is that all the foliage goes the other way
Peterb

Hi everyone, I decided I was going to do this myself , so this is what I've done so far , any ideas or opinions welcome. I jinned some of the branches and learnt a lesson about juni's strip the bark as soon as you jin the branch it's a lot easier than if you've left the bark to die and dry out I wrapped the trunk at the point I was going to bend with raffia and a double wire ( fortunately it already had quite a good bend there already ) then I planted a steel rod in the soil next to trunk as an anchor and attached a turnbuckle which I've used to pull the trunk a fare way I'll keep increasing the pull over the next year or so
peterb

peterb wrote:I jinned some of the branches and learnt a lesson about juni's strip the bark as soon as you jin the branch it's a lot easier than if you've left the bark to die and dry out

What do you mean? Did you just ring bark the branch and then leave it? Isn't removing the bark the first step in creating a jin?

Nice work on the first few steps! Any foliage reduction?

Hi Jarad, sorry only replying now, I didn't see that you had posted and then I was away for 2 weeks. No mate, the branches were cut off when i dug it out and then just left for the 2 years I left the tree to recover. So now when I'm trying to jin them the bark is hard and not coming off without a fight , so I've learnt that when working with juni's you strip anything you may possibly use as a jin right away. I haven't reduced any foliage as yet, just trying to get that bend in the trunk. I now have 2 turnbuckles on and have a really good bend in it . So now I'm just feeding heavily and waiting for spring to do the next bend, which I intend to channel the trunk. I'll update with some photo's when i'm on my 4 off again
cheers, peterb

Hi everyone
thought I'd give a bit of an update on how the bend in the trunk is coming along, I'm quite pleased with it so far and am waiting till spring comes round again to do the next stage, I need to bend the branch up that will become the apex and the other branch that will form part of the branch structure, but they are thick so I'll have to hollow them out and insert wire and do as I saw Mauro do. Just a question, about how long would I need to leave the turnbuckles on for the branch to hold it's position

You are looking probably at least 12 months, but as with all things bonsai there are a few variables. If you leave the wire on until it just marks the bark a little bit, then generally that will then hold. But as with most large specimens you work with there is always something to do, so re-wiring will be needed somewhere along the track.
Good to see it progressing.

Thanks watto , i'm leaving as much of the foliage as i can to maximize growth to speed up the setting of the trunk . Is that correct or should i be starting to work on the foliage reduction now.

Hi Everyone
Just an update on this tree , I've taken off the wire from the trunk bend and it's holding position . I've now moved to the next branch that needed bending. I had to split the branch as was to thick to just bend , then wrapped with 2 layers of raffia , 2 layers of grafting tape and a layer of rubber intube. Then I wrapped a 6mm wire and a 5mm wire but had to rewrap wire as I hadn't done it correctly and branch started to split from trunk as wire wasn't supporting the junction . Wire not enough to hold branch so have put a turnbuckle on this branch as well .

Just a question , would it be to much to channel the trunk and bend it further up from the first bend in the same season as me doing this branch .

Hi Peter
Don't know if you are still looking for ideas or if this is remotely possible,but seen this from your third pic from the top,very nice material you have there...cheers Anthony

Hi Anthony
I don't think that's possible anymore as I've bent the trunk down and back and next step is to bend the apex back up, I certainly would have looked at your design when I first started this road but now to far dow the track. Thanks for the input
Cheers peterb